I can't believe she is 7 weeks old already. I know it sound silly because she is still so little but it's hard to imagine life without Haven. Her NAM is making a huge difference in her smile (although I love the smile she was born with) and she will be ready for surgery by the end of September at this rate. Her friend Simon had his lip surgery the end of last week with great results. We met Simon's parents during one of our visits to Dr. Polley's office. He was born in May and had his NAM already when we first met him. It gave Mike and I a good idea of what we were in for when Haven received her device which was nice. He was born with a cleft lip, palate, and issues with his ears which required tubes to be placed during this first surgery. Haven had her first surgery on 7/14 to remove part of a tooth and to take out some tissue that was holding her lip back. She didn't do very well with anesthesia and we ended up spending the night in the Pediatric ICU for monitoring but she's a tough cookie (as her daddy says) and was back to normal after a day or two. While she was under-they did the impression for her NAM and we picked it up that next week. The first day was rough--it resembles a retainer and because Haven's palate is not open-it was an extra discomfort in her mouth at first. She had trouble eating that first day and was exhausted from screaming for about 3 hours straight in the doctor's office....so she got a good night sleep and we started all over the next day. She learned how to eat all over again and hasn't looked back since. Mike and I take it out every night to clean it and have become pros at getting it back in with minimal screaming from Haven. :) It's amazing to me what has become our new "norm"--I think nothing of cleaning her mouth out with gauze and holding the appliance in place until the Fixadent adheres. This is just one step on our journey and we are loving every minute of it...
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